Day 24 - Bricks and Stone

The juxtaposition of these very different types of stone caught my eye as I was wandering through the castle. Not that I know when they started laying brick walls like this, but I have a feeling it wasn't in the Medieval ages - it looks way to even and well maintained to be that old. I guess they had to redo this fireplace at some point. I like the effect nonetheless.

This will be the end of my abstract texture high key shots, and I'll move on to... I don't really know what I'll move on to... I've sort of exhausted the best of my shots from the day at the market, but I might be able to dig up some more if I really try. Otherwise you'll se some of the other pictures I took in France. Either way, I'm no way near done with this challenge :)

I'll see you tomorrow

/MrsHjort

Day 22 - Aged

I can't help but wonder how this would have looked when it was brand new. The fine apartments of the castle were all beautifully decorated and filled with wonderful details such as this. It must have been stunning! Though as beautiful as it must have looked back in the day, I think I like this better, not to live in mind you, but as a subject for photography.

Speaking of photography, I've gotten a brand new camera (Nikon D7100) as a birthday present from my family, and I'm having so much fun checking it out! All the new functions are so much fun to explore. I was just outside in my garden testing the HDR-settings and I'm very satisfied with the results I got. It's so much easier than the way I used to do it. As a matter of fact I've just entered one of the HDR shots from today into the Calendar Corsair Challenge for this month at DaggerBay. So you'll get to see it in a bit over a week. Time will tell how it all goes.

/MrsHjort

Day 21 - Sculpted

I have to admit, when I was at the castle in Chateauneuf en Auxois, I totally fell in love with all the little details inside, like the ornamented windows, the sculpted stone and the aging paint pealing off hand-crafted wood. I love stuff like that. I'm a sucker for aged textures :).

Editing the shots, I'm trying very hard to resist my urge to crank up the contrast. I love doing that as it usually brings out the colors and clarity of a shot, though these shots are all about the texture and light, and cranking up the contrast eliminates that. I hope I've gotten it right - a part of me still wants to crank up the contrast, but then, the different shades of white and grey are more discernible this way, so I keep going back to it.

Do you agree? Is less more in this case?

Cheers

/MrsHjort

Day 19 - Window Knob

Today I'm starting the next segment of shots from that day at the Medieval market - shots of details from inside the castle. There were loads of pretty stuff in there - authentic, aged, beautifully worn and oh so charming!

I have to confess that there is an ulterior motive to me doing this particular segment - it's not all about the subjects. You see, I don't do high key shots very often, and this is my chance to practice editing them. So please, don't be afraid to give me a pointer or two. I always appreciate feedback.

The post-ed here was a bit more complex than what one might think. I started with the usual stuff - Levels, Detail extractor, High key, Cross processing, Foliage (to enhance the yellow spectra) and a slight vignette. Then I did some local editing to brighten the knob and the wood. That blew out the highlights to the right though, so I used a soft history brush to bring them back. The experimenting almost made me forget about sharpening haha. But only almost.

/MrsHjort